Table of Contents

Canada Post

To activate Canada Post as one of the shipping providers used by your store, follow the steps outlined below.

Registration and Activation

Registration. First, apply for a “Shipping Profile” with Canada Post. To do so, send an e-mail request to eparcel@canadapost.ca. Make sure to include your company name, a contact name, and a telephone number.

Request “Sell Online Direct Connection”. ProductCart utilizes Canada Post's Sell Online's XML Direct Connection. To use the system, you need to request authorization to use a Sell Online Direct Connection to the Canada Post server. This can be obtained by sending an email to sellonline@canadapost.ca and by asking for the “Sell Online Direct Connection”. Canada Post will reply with a message containing a User ID and a password that you will need in order to edit your Shipping Profile (see below) and activate the shipping provider on ProductCart.

Edit Shipping Profile. Your Shipping Profile was set up as a generic profile and populated with default values. These values must be modified to match your actual shipping address and company information before you can use the system.

To update your Shipping Profile, visit the Sell Online Shipping Module section of the Canada Post Sell Online Web site, located at the following address (log in with the User ID and password that you received via e-mail from Canada Post): http://sellonline.canadapost.ca/servlet/LogonServlet

After you log in, a menu with several links will be displayed. The only area that you need to edit is the General Information section. When entering your Canadian postal code on that page, make sure to enter a 6 digit code with no spaces. You do not need to edit the Shipping Services, Boxes, and Handling Fees sections because these values will be configured directly through ProductCart.

Activate Canada Post. You are now ready to activate Canada Post within ProductCart. On the initial screen, enter your User ID and the following server address: http://sellonline.canadapost.ca:30000. This URL is now used by stores that are both in TEST Mode and ACTIVE Mode.

Shipping Settings

Service Selection.
Select from a variety of shipping services provided by Canada Post for shipment within Canada, from Canada to the United States, and from Canada to other International locations. As with all other shipping providers, for each shipping service that you select, ProductCart allows you to specify an order amount above which the selected service will be provided to your customers for free, and additional shipping and handling fees.

Packaging Type
Enter the standard sizes of the package that is typically used to ship your orders. When you are done, click on the Submit button to complete the Canada Post configuration.

The shipping options summary page will display a list of the Canada Post shipping services that you have selected with links to add, edit or remove any of its settings. To change the server address from the testing server to the production server, click on the Edit text link next to Canada Post License Information.

Troubleshooting Canada Post

If your storefront is not able to retrieve Canada Post shipping rates, please go through the following check list to make sure that your ProductCart-powered store can correctly communicate with Canada Post:

You have requested a shipping profile account from eparcel@canadapost.ca.

ProductCart utilizes Canada Post's Sell Online's XML Direct Connection. The Sell Online Direct Connection to the server can be obtained by sending an email to sellonline@canadapost.ca and by asking for the “Sell Online Direct Connection”.

The server address in the ProductCart Control Panel (CanadaPost settings) has been entered exactly as follows: http://sellonline.canadapost.ca:30000

If you are still not getting any rates, try changing the XML Parser (Help > Troubleshooting Utility) to version 4.

Make sure that the products that you are testing with have a weight assigned to them.

Make sure your store is using Metric weights.

Switching between Lbs/Ozs and Metric is not straight forward but can be done. See this
FAQ